Mum in the Middle Page 8

  ‘Hey, we could do a duet on Tuesday,’ said Jinni, clearly enthused now by several glasses of red. ‘Let’s get some words. Got an iPad or something?’

  Ben shuddered. ‘Noooooo.’

  When Oliver and Sam started yawning and announced they were going to bed early, I shooed the others into the front room. They got very little privacy, both sharing with others in small flats, where there always seemed to be extra bodies staying.

  ‘Shall I make coffee?’ I said, standing up as the couple disappeared into the adjoining conservatory, closing the blinds behind them.

  Tilly began gathering dishes. ‘You’d better,’ she said. ‘Ben’s got that simple look on his face.’

  She was looking a bit flushed herself. ‘Leave the rest,’ I said, as she dumped a pile of plates perilously close to the edge of the kitchen work surface. ‘Look after our guests …’

  But Jinni and Gabriel appeared completely at home as I handed round mugs and Jinni poured more port into our glasses and returned to perch cross-legged in my largest chair. Ben was sprawled back on the sofa, guitar across his chest. Tess sat on the floor, legs out in front of her. Gabriel jumped up from his seat and took the last mug from me. ‘Let me help you with the washing up.’

  I smiled at him. ‘The dishwasher can do that.’

  Jinni grinned round at my own offspring. ‘Or isn’t that what kids are for?’

  ‘In theory,’ I smiled back. I did seem to have fallen back into my role of chief cook and bottle-washer with indecent speed, but they were only here briefly …

  I sat down next to Ben and poked him.

  ‘Come on then – give us a song …’

  Ben sang a selection he knew I liked – from David Gray, Snow Patrol and Ben Howard – and strummed along as Jinni and Tilly did songs from Evita – Jinni had a good voice, strong and clear, and Tilly stayed in tune pretty well behind her. Gabriel shyly demurred from singing – ‘I’m not that good, not compared with Ben’ – but promised to give us a tune on Tuesday in the pub. He looked at me.

  ‘You’re coming, aren’t you, Tess?’

  ‘I’ve got a long day at work, some important meetings.’ I felt a twinge of angst as I said it. I had some plans to finish before then. Gabriel made a show of looking disappointed and I thought how polite he was to include me. Ben and Tilly wouldn’t give a stuff if I pitched up or not.

  I stood up. ‘More coffee?’

  But Jinni was yawning and Gabriel immediately got to his feet too.

  ‘It’s been a really great evening,’ he said, kissing my cheek and looking at me with real appreciation in his eyes before turning to Tilly too.

  ‘Such a pleasure,’ I said, as she hugged him.

  Jinni threw her arms around me. ‘Fabulous,’ she said. ‘My turn soon.’

  They walked down the path together. ‘They’re nice,’ said Tilly, as I closed the door. ‘Jinni’s not that mad after all.’

  ‘Apart from wanting to sing with you,’ put in Ben behind us. ‘Gabe’s a good guy.’

  I beamed at them both. ‘It felt like we’d known them for years …’

  ‘I’m going to bed,’ Tilly picked up her magazine. She prodded her brother as she went past. ‘Don’t make any disgusting noises.’

  Ben made a face at her. ‘Like you don’t!’

  As I put the chain on across the front door, I looked down at the wall that ran towards the start of the stairs, where the footwear had now multiplied. Oliver’s loafers lay next to Ben’s trainers, alongside a pair of boots belonging to Tilly, accompanied by some heels, socks, flip-flops and a neatly aligned pair of slippers that were probably Sam’s.

  Smiling, I remembered the permanent mass of shoes that used to form an unruly mound in the hallway in Finchley.

  I recalled Rob coming in one night and tripping over a stray sneaker in the middle of the rug. Pictured him glaring at the heap beneath the hall mirror which had spilled off the shoe rack and spread halfway to the stairs, and the way he had flown into an unexpected rage, turning on me in fury, blaming my slap-dash attitude, poor parenting, lack of disciplinarianism and general hopelessness, for the lack of order in the house.

  ‘They leave them there, because YOU let them,’ he had shrieked, and I’d been so startled by his red face and shaking lips I’d choked on a strange bubble of hysterical laughter.

  ‘They’re only shoes,’ I’d managed to say, while Ben and Tilly scuttled from hall to coat cupboard and Oliver, aged 16, had stood tall and looked Rob in the eye, and said: ‘it’s not Mum’s fault, it’s ours’.’

  ‘Sorry’, Rob had said grudgingly later. ‘Bad day.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ I’d replied. Because it didn’t by then. A decade earlier I’d have been anxious, tearful, mortified by his anger and my failings. Now, I was gloriously unbothered, probably trying to remember what was still in the tumble dryer and whether the cat had been wormed.

  This evening, divorced and independent, in my own home, with no one to answer to, I kicked off the battered old mules I used for forays into the garden and added them to the pile.

  Then I switched off the rest of the lights and went upstairs in the dark.

  There would be no nightmares tonight.

  There was a row of footwear down there that wasn’t mine.

  Chapter 11

  I woke abruptly and sat bolt upright, heart banging.

  The illuminated numbers on my radio alarm showed 5.32. I remembered my children were all here and everything was lovely and slumped back against the pillows in relief.

  Then I heard it again. Someone was throwing up.

  I got out of bed, wrapped my robe around me and followed the sound of retching to the downstairs loo off the utility room, expecting to see Ben suffering the consequences of more beers than I’d realised or the 2 a.m. munchies and a dodgy take-away.

  But it was Oliver standing anxiously in the doorway. Beyond him I could see Sam kneeling on the tiles, head over the bowl. Beside her on the floor was a towel and a bottle of Dettox.

  ‘She’s really ill,’ said Oliver. ‘Both ends,’ he mouthed.

  ‘Oh, sweetie.’ Sam gave another gut-wrenching retch, although she clearly had nothing left to bring up.

  ‘She’s freezing.’ I said, feeling the cold skin on her arms. ‘Get something to put round her.

  ‘Sorry,’ Sam gasped. And heaved again.

  ‘She said she was hot,’ said Oliver behind me. ‘She was sweating earlier.’

  I felt her clammy forehead. ‘There’s a cardigan on the chair in my bedroom.’

  I wrapped the garment around Sam’s heaving shoulders and stroked her hair.

  ‘Get her some water,’ I told Oliver as Sam suddenly stiffened and scrambled to her feet. ‘I need to go to the loo,’ she said urgently, pushing me out. ‘Not again …’

  I went back into the kitchen and put the kettle on. Oliver looked worried. ‘Have you got anything we can give her?’

  ‘I don’t think so. I had a massive clear-out when I moved. There’s only pain-killers.’ I looked out of the front window. There were lights on in the rectory. ‘I’ll go and ask Jinni.’

  She opened the door immediately, wearing a long towelling dressing gown and looking pale without her usual dramatic eye make-up.

  ‘You’re early!’ she said. ‘Did you get one too?’

  ‘What?’

  Jinni picked up a folded piece of paper from the small table in her hall and handed it to me. It was the article from the newspaper – with the large photo of her and the small unfortunate one of me. Someone had drawn a thick circle around her face and written in black marker pen: FUCK OFF BACK WHERE YOU CAME FROM THEN.

  ‘Christ,’ I said. ‘No, I didn’t.’

  ‘I thought I heard something just after I’d gone upstairs last night,’ Jinni said. ‘Found it on the mat this morning.’

  ‘I’m sorry, but I’ve come over because–’

  ‘But it could have been there all evening, cos I usually come in round the
side. I expect he did it after he’d seen me going over to you …’

  ‘You don’t really think–’

  ‘Him or his mad mother. I’ll give them fuck off …’

  I looked at her set face and decided this was not a time to debate it. I told her about Sam.

  ‘Ah!’ Jinni looked rueful. ‘I had the squits earlier too.’

  ‘Oh my God,’ I said, as the suspicion I’d been trying to banish took root. ‘It must have been my food. But you had turkey, and Sam had her own pie and the only stuff we all ate was the veg and surely that wouldn’t give you food poisoning. I’m okay and so is Oliver, and Tilly and Ben are all quiet. Cauliflower cheese?’ I said, worried. ‘Can that make you ill?’

  Jinni shook her head. ‘I wouldn’t think so, but …’ she pulled another face. ‘I’m sorry to say it, but remember I had some of the fish pie too …’

  ‘Oh bloody hell.’ I clapped a hand to my mouth. ‘Suppose I’ve given you both salmonella or E. coli. Oh Christ, Jinni, I’m so sorry.’

  My own gut had gone into an anxious spasm.

  Jinni led the way into her kitchen. ‘Don’t worry about me. I feel fine now. I’ve got a stomach of iron.’

  She looked at me as she filled the kettle. ‘But I only had a little bit.’

  ‘Did it taste funny? Sam was probably too polite to say.’

  ‘No, it was fantastic. How bad is she?’

  ‘She seems to have stopped throwing up, but she’s still got diarrhoea and looks terrible. Perhaps I should get a doctor.’

  ‘I wouldn’t panic just yet. I’ve got some marvellous stuff somewhere …’

  Jinni was rooting in a cupboard next to the range. ‘Was given it in Mexico when I made the mistake of having the double-chilli devil burger and had to go on a bus for three hours.’

  She produced a small brown bottle and thrust it at me. ‘Do you want tea?’

  ‘I’d better not stay.’ I peered at the faded label. ‘This is a bit out of date,’ I said dubiously. ‘Do you think it’s okay?’

  Jinni snorted. ‘Course it is. They put use-by dates on bloody washing-up liquid these days. Get a couple of spoonfuls down her neck and she’ll be sorted in no time.’

  But Oliver shared my misgivings. ‘I think we should get some proper medicine,’ he said, when I got back with Jinni’s potion. ‘We don’t know what this is. It might make her worse.’

  Sam had progressed to lying on the sofa bed, under a mound of duvet, but was still a horrible shade of grey and looked as though she could be ill again any moment.

  ‘I’ll go down to the chemist and speak to the pharmacist,’ I told him. Keep giving her water, if she can manage it.’

  As I hurried along the road, head down against a biting wind, I ran through my ingredients. The white fish for the pie had been frozen cod – there’d be nothing wrong with that. The same with the prawns. I’d got the seafood cocktail – full of mussels and squid – from a small deli I loved in Soho. Maybe it was that. But the shop was spotless – I’d been using it for years.

  And I’d put it in the office fridge, together with the ham and cheese, as soon as I got back from lunch with Caroline. But then it had been in my hessian bag on the tube and all the way home on the train. Perhaps it had got too warm. Guiltily, I remembered how thrilled I’d been to see Ben already there when I got back. I’d made tea – we’d sat talking. Now I thought about it, I hadn’t put the shopping away for ages. It had sat there in the bag, in the warm house, bacteria multiplying away merrily. Oh bloody hell, how long had it been? Sam chucking up for England was all my fault …

  The pharmacy was shut. The notice on the door said it opened at 10 a.m. on a Sunday – would that be the same for Easter Monday? It was only 8.30 a.m. I remembered another smaller, old-fashioned-looking chemist at the far end of the High Street. I wished I’d thought of Google before I left home.

  I walked on, past the unlit post office and the shuttered butchers, glancing up at the offices of the Northstone News, wondering if Gabriel was in there. He’d said he had to work today. He might know about emergency help.

  The small bow-windowed chemist was closed too. I peered in at a display of lavender bath products and body brushes and could see no sign of life. A cardboard dial on the door showed they’d next be open at nine on Tuesday.

  Fuck it. Gabriel’s mobile number was at home on the card he’d given me but not in my phone. As I hesitated outside the locked offices, a booming voice behind me called out in greeting.

  ‘If you’d turned up earlier, we could have had breakfast,’ said Malcolm, looking me up and down. He jerked his head in the direction from which I’d just come. ‘The Northstone Café and Grill. Also known as Stan’s Greasy Spoon. Best bacon in town.’

  I gave an involuntary shudder, shaking off thoughts of sick bags and gently rotting mussels. Malcolm looked disappointed. ‘Most important meal of the day,’ he said. ‘What are you doing here?’

  I explained I was needing help. He snorted. ‘I wouldn’t ask Useless what time it was, let alone for medical advice.’ He laughed loudly while I frowned.

  ‘Don’t call him that,’ I said. ‘He’s a lovely boy.’

  ‘If you say so.’ Malcolm pointed down the road. ‘You’ll get what you need in the Mini Mart,’ he said. ‘They’ve been open since seven.’

  He clapped me on the shoulder as I thanked him. ‘Remind me not to come for dinner.’

  I smiled. ‘I wasn’t going to ask you,’ I told him.

  ‘That’s where you’re going wrong,’ he said, tapping out numbers on a keypad next to the office door. ‘I am excellent company.’

  He probably would be an amusing guest, I thought, as I stood at the till in the little general store and paid for the Imodium. If I ever dared cook for anyone again. But I wished he wouldn’t be so horrible about Gabriel. I’d be most upset if Ben had a boss like that – it must be very sapping to a young man’s confidence. I might point that out next time I ran into the caustic Malcolm. Ask him if he could remember how he felt when he was starting out.

  When I got home, Tilly was in the kitchen, wearing my dressing gown and making toast. ‘Ben’s still in his pit,’ she said. ‘Ollie’s in the shower and Sam’s been sick again. She’s gone back to bed. Oh and the loo’s not flushing very well.’

  Terrific.

  ‘I feel okay,’ she added, as she unscrewed the lid of the peanut butter. ‘And Ben was trying to get me to cook him sausages, so he hasn’t got it either. He’s got some bloody hope,’ she finished, balancing toast and coffee in one hand and picking up her phone and the newspaper with the other.

  ‘Your phone’s ringing,’ she called a few minutes later from the sofa. ‘Don’t recognise the number–’

  Go away!

  It was Gabriel, thanking me for a lovely time and wondering if there was anything he could do since he’d heard from Malcolm that someone was ill. I resisted asking him to come and stick his arm round my downstairs u-bend – I had poured half a bottle of bleach down there and emptied the cistern several times, but the water level was still higher than it should be, which was all we bloody needed – and told him everything was under control. I was about to tell him about Jinni getting the note when Tilly interrupted.

  ‘Ask him what time he’s getting to the open mic tomorrow.’

  ‘Tilly wants to speak to you,’ I said, handing the phone over. It wasn’t my story anyway. It was up to Jinni. And I had enough to worry about. I could hear my daughter chortling as I went back into the kitchen, where Oliver was now standing by the kettle. ‘She’s asleep,’ he said. ‘I think I might try to get some too – we’ve been up most of the night.’

  I gave him a hug. ‘Good idea. Do you want some breakfast first?’ Oliver blanched. ‘I don’t think I could.’

  Ben had no such reservations. I left him frying and went into the dining room with my laptop. I’d had an email from Paul stressing about the meeting tomorrow, double-checking I was fully prepared as he didn’t seem to have t
he plans for the office layouts in his dropbox and wasn’t sure why not.

  ‘For the very simple reason I haven’t finished them yet,’ I said out loud, on a wave of guilt. Millbury & Miles – retro department stores with traditional values – were our newest client and, as Paul reminded us daily, set to spend a small fortune with RG Quality Office Fittings, for the twenty-odd new outlets they were planning to open in the next two years, as long as we got this one right.

  I pulled up the floor plans on my screen. I needed to get them uploaded sharpish before Paul – not one to let a small matter like a Bank Holiday get in the way – progressed to phoning.

  I spent the rest of the day slotting desks and swivel chairs into place while still allowing room to swing a cat or open a filing cabinet as Oliver and Sam dozed in the conservatory and Tilly did her nails in front of the TV, keeping up a running criticism of Ben’s choices of entertainment.

  ‘You’re going to have to get double-glazing,’ she said, appearing in the doorway as I popped the last set of drawers into place. ‘Can you hear that wind? It’s Baltic out there. And half of it is coming in.’

  ‘Stuff a tissue in the keyhole,’ I said vaguely. ‘Whoops, there’s Paul.’

  ‘Just sending to you now,’ I sang gaily into my mobile. ‘Sorry – been a busy weekend. I’ve got the kids here and …’ I waved Tilly away as I chattered on, trying to imply I’d finished the project days ago but simply omitted to upload it, and attempting a soothing tone while Paul told me for the sixteenth time how crucial it was that I was fully on top of every last room-divide eventuality and could talk the clients through positioning of the workstations vis-à-vis staff comfort and optimum efficiency.

  ‘They’re arriving at 9.30 a.m. I’ve asked Ruby to get everyone assembled in the boardroom by nine,’ he finished.

  ‘See you, then,’ I said cheerily, thinking I’d better get an even earlier train than planned. ‘Give my love to Barbara.’ I could imagine his wife rolling her eyes in the background as he rehearsed his powerpoint presentation yet again, and she said, as she always did, ‘Don’t be so boring, Paul.’